


One Good Honest...

by NovelistAngel23



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Also bg Sylvain/Glenn? It's wittle bit it's there, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Flirting, Bad Boy Holst, Chris works in a bowling alley, Holst is the bad boy regular he's totally not crushing on, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22124065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovelistAngel23/pseuds/NovelistAngel23
Summary: Every night, Holst Goneril brings a new date to Thunderstrike bowling alley--not that Christophe cares. He most certainly does not care! He's got bigger things to worry about than his dreamy regular customer.But when one night Holst comes in alone, Chris finds himself caring a lot more than he's willing to admit...
Relationships: Christophe Gaspard/Holst Goneril
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	One Good Honest...

Holst Goneril had a new date every night, and for the life of him, Christophe couldn’t figure out what his type was. One night he brought a very tall girl with sparkly brown eyes. She was perky and funny and Chris was pretty sure Holst was enamored with her.

The next night, he brought a boy who was very shy. His long black hair was almost as pretty as Glenn’s, the sarcastic clerk who worked the shoe rental counter.

The night after that, a short girl who looked like she’d rather be anywhere than bowling at _Thunderstrike? This place is totally lame._

Well, Chris had to agree with that. Of all places to take a date, he couldn’t imagine why Holst chose Thunderstrike. Chris had his own reasons for frequenting the rundown bowling alley, being the nephew of the owner (well that and he worked there). He’d practically grown up in Thunderstrike’s hallowed halls. In the chilly winter, he and his father played game after game, staying warm with chili cheese dogs that gave Chris a stomach ache now that he was twenty one and too stressed to keep down much other than a salad.

Back then, the place had been so shiny and new. Though maybe that was the thin sheen of nostalgia layered over his memories, because he couldn’t recall when it had gone from glowing lights and shrieking children to the peeling carpet and oft resewn bowling shoes.

And he certainly couldn’t recall it ever being a place to bring a date.

“You’re so fucking obvious,” a familiar voice snickered over his shoulder.

Chris jumped halfway out of his skin, scrambling back from the counter he’d been leaned all over staring at Holst across the room. Miklan’s raspy chuckle made him grimace as he looked back at him. “Leave me alone,” he huffed, crossing his arms and turning back to the slushie machines.

Miklan just leaned against the counter near him and smirked. Chris returned the expression with a grimace. Miklan was bigger than Chris by quite a bit, tall and broad, with his bright red hair all a mess over his eyes and scarred nose. Tall, broad, and _mean_. Chris couldn’t do a thing without him snickering about it for some reason or other.

“You know, if you want to ask him out, you should probably just do it already,” Miklan mused, resting his chin in his hand and glancing back at Holst.

Chris looked at Holst through the plastic of the slushie machines. Blurry, his bright pink hair standing out as he laughed at whatever conversation he was having on his phone. The lights were dim save for the spotlights of each lane, and Chris couldn’t help suddenly wondering what the Holst Goneril Experience was.

What was it like, trading banter, making him laugh, in the dim lighting of the alley, the reflection of his smile on his glossy bowling ball. Holst always chose the pink one, same as his hair, same as his eyes.

Chris shook his head hard and glared at Miklan. He twisted the dispensers on the slushie machines so they were tight and no longer drippy, and then he whipped away to pull the fries from the fryer. “Hey, I’m just offering advice!”

“He always has a date, Miklan,” Chris muttered, and then realizing what he’d admitted, threw his hand over his mouth and stuttered, “W-well, and I-I’m not--”

Miklan’s smirk cut him off. “Doesn’t look like he has one right now.”

Chris didn’t dare look, turning back to his work despite the heat of a blush he felt high on his cheeks. He most certainly wasn’t interested in Holst anyway. Chris had always prided himself on his neatness, his modesty. He wasn’t the kind to go around with a new lover on his arm every night, nor was he the type to dye his hair so bright pink or to laugh so loud he could be heard easily over the hazy pop song playing over the speakers.

But gosh, Holst had a nice laugh.

Chris remembered the first time he heard that laugh. Sometimes Holst didn’t bring a date but a teenage girl with hair just as pink as his own. Her name was Hilda and she was Holst's younger sister, according to his own baby brother Ashe, who’d taken to hanging out with her on the rare days Chris brought him to work the same time Holst brought her to play. She was very lazy, and that Chris learned just from observing, hiding his own giggle under his breath when Hilda made Holst bowl for her even though they were meant to be competing.

When Hilda lost, she was shocked, and Holst’s laugh filled the entire bowling alley, so loud and lovely that Chris was instantly enamored. He’d never heard him laugh that way for anyone else.

“He must be on the phone with her,” Chris murmured under his breath, grabbing a rag from under the counter to wipe down the hot dog grill.

“Her?” Miklan said, surprising Chris, who’d nearly forgotten he was there.

“Oh!” He looked at Holst with wide eyes and then flushed and turned back to the grill. “H-his little--”

“Ugh,” Miklan suddenly groaned, the distaste in his voice painfully familiar.

Chris looked up to follow his gaze, but it wasn’t hard to guess what was going on. At the shoe rental counter, Glenn stood with a single brow raised incredulously at another redheaded Gautier who’d draped himself over the counter to flirt.

If Holst was promiscuous, Miklan’s little brother Sylvain was downright… well, Chris always told his siblings to speak kindly, and he wasn’t a hypocrite.

Even so, Chris couldn’t deny Glenn didn’t look upset about Sylvain being there, leaning over the counter and doubtless waxing poetic about his beautiful hair. He almost looked a little pleased about it.

“I swear I’m gonna strangle that little shit,” Miklan groaned, but there was a fondness to the words as he pushed off the counter and headed for the scene sure to unfold.

“Little brothers can be like that,” Chris mused, absentmindedly wiping down the hot dog grill. He recalled when Alistair--the youngest of his siblings--developed a horrible habit of repeating everything he said.

“Your brother didn’t sleep with your girlfriend,” Miklan muttered, and Chris paled in horror. Miklan’s laugh had a little too much edge to assure that he was joking. He turned to walk backwards and point behind Chris. “Incoming.”

Then he jumped over the snack bar counter and headed to scare his little brother off from “harassing his friends,” leaving Chris alone. On slow nights like this, that wasn’t so bad, but when he turned to see where Miklan had pointed, he realized it was very bad indeed.

Hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, Holst Goneril had left behind his lane, his bright hair shining in the neon lights as he made his way to the snack bar. Chris’s heart hammered against his ribs, eyes going wide to drink in the sight of him. He was tall--maybe not as tall as Miklan, but certainly taller than himself--and his heart-shaped face belied the edge to his smile. Hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, a scar across one of his eyes that admittedly was far more attractive than Chris liked to admit.

Chris blinked rapidly, fighting the urge to slap his hands to his temples and physically shove out his distracting thoughts. Gosh, when had he become such a lech! It wasn’t as if Holst had never come to snack bar before--in fact, he came over often, though usually Miklan was around to take off the edge and over the conversation. Holst was regular enough that Chris had even memorized his usual order, as if Thunderstrike was a cozy, charming, hole in the wall coffee shop instead of a rinky-dink bowling alley.

Holst didn’t seem to notice Chris’s internal panic, though. He took a seat at one of the barstools, looking upset for some reason Chris couldn’t yet fathom. He was a little too busy glancing at Miklan getting into it with Sylvain, who couldn’t stop laughing, and Glenn, who looked a little annoyed about the rude interruption. Silently, Chris willed Miklan over to help, but he received not even a glance.

He looked at Holst instead, who smiled at him, eyes centered on him and only him. Chris felt as if a spotlight shone directly over his head. If it weren’t a little stuffy in the alley that day, Chris would have said that moment was when his hands started to sweat.

“Hey,” he said.

 _Hey_. That shouldn’t have been enough to make Chris tremble, but it was.

“H-hello,” Chris said, hiding his shaking hands behind his back.

“Can I get--”

“A large coke slushie; hot dog, hold the bun, not the mustard; chili fries, extra, extra chili?” Chris finished without thinking, and then froze as he realized what he’d said. He stared at Holst, eyes wide. It… wasn’t so strange was it? To have memorized his usual order?

Holst _was_ a regular customer, though he and Chris had hardly exchanged more than a few words. Only once or twice had Holst complimented his hair or thanked him for working so quickly. Maybe it was odd, maybe Holst was creeped out--it wouldn’t be the first time someone had claimed Chris was--

“You really know what you’re doing, huh?” Holst chuckled.

Oh. His voice was kind.

Chris felt a blush creep up his cheeks, and he bit his lip hard as he glanced to the side where Miklan was still fruitlessly shooing his little brother away from Glenn. Where Miklan had a coarse voice and Glenn’s voice smooth, Holst was… sweet. There was something full to it, even but bright. Ugh, how could he wax so poetically about a _voice_?

“Th-thank you,” Chris managed, whipping around to the fryer. The fries had already been set in the warmer though, there was nothing to take out of it. Chris’s hands twitched idly at his sides.

He wasn’t good at starting conversation. What was he supposed to say? Was he meant to say anything at all?

“Busy night?” Holst asked.

Chris wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or even more nervous by the question. He was many things, but a conversationalist wasn’t one of them. “N-not really,” he said, scurrying to the finished fries and scooping them into a container. “Um, what about you?”

He cursed himself. If Glenn were within earshot, he surely would have burst out laughing.

Holst laughed too, but it wasn’t teasing or cruel at all. It was rich and soothing, the sound sending shivers through Chris. “Mm, can’t say it’s been busy,” he mused, as Chris set a hot dog on the grill and poured chili over the fries. He kept filling until the chili threatened to spill--just the way Holst liked. “Hilda wouldn’t get to bed though. I was on the phone with her earlier and--oh, Hilda’s my little--”

“Sister,” Chris interrupted, setting the fries on a tray, checking the hot dog, grabbing a big cup from the stack of them near the register. He ignored Holst’s raised eyebrows, realizing with shame he sounded like a stalker. “Um, m-my little brother… My little brother Ashe--he’s the boy that she hangs out with here, he uh… mentioned her…”

“Wait,” Holst laughed in disbelief, “ _You’re_ Ashe’s brother?”

Chris frowned at Holst in confusion as the coke slush filled the cup in smooth swirls. “Yes?”

Holst leaned his cheek in his hand, shaking his head and looking Chris up and down thoughtfully. “You don’t look anything like him.”

Chris bit his lip and shrugged, pulling the coke from the machine just as a timer went off, signalling the hot dog was done. He was grateful for Holst’s layered order. At least it gave his hands something to do other than fidget. “H-he’s… well, he and his siblings are adopted… But yes, _I’m_ his brother.”

Holst hummed in a way that made Chris glance at him over his shoulder. His eyes were… Chris didn’t get him at all. Were they naturally that way, so bright pink and smoldering? He could see the darkness of his natural roots in his hair, but his eyes were so… unnaturally…

“Being a big brother is hard, huh?” Holst said, and Chris’s eyes unwittingly followed the movement of his lips, soft and full, shining in the flickering neon sign above the snack bar. “That looks like it’s about to burn.”

Chris blinked at him and then gasped, whipping around to pick the hot dog off of the grill. Holst’s laugh made him blush in shame. He’d most certainly been caught staring. He hurriedly set the hot dog in a box and spurted mustard all over it, muttering under his breath as he slid it over to Holst, “I’m still not sure why you have extra chili but refuse the bread.”

He looked up to see Holst’s smirk, his shining eyes staring into Chris’s soul. “Bread gives me gas,” he said, pulling out a fry and chomping down.

Chris couldn’t help the way his lips twisted, couldn’t help the surprised giggle that left his chest. “Oh, charming,” he laughed.

Holst winked at him and pulled out his wallet to pay, but Chris felt like a robot as he accepted and gave him his change. He realized, now that Holst had his food, that there still wasn’t some beautiful date to whisk him away as usual. He scanned the building, but the only ones on the lanes were an elderly couple (so cute) and a bunch of children chasing each other around the arcade.

“Looking for someone?” Holst asked, lazily slurping at his slushie.

Chris leaned back and stared at him in surprise. “N-no,” he said quickly, looking away and biting his lip. It wouldn’t do for him to point out that Holst was strangely alone for once.

Miklan’s words from earlier echoed in his head. _Doesn’t look like he has one right now._

Holst eyed him, licking his lips in a way that certainly didn’t make a lump form in Chris’s throat. “You know, it’s a shame we haven’t really talked much before.” He sat up straighter and held out his clean hand towards him to shake. “I’m Holst.”

Chris stared at Holst’s hand for surely longer than he needed to. He… hated hands. Just the thought of taking it made his stomach twist. Would it be too rude to refuse? He certainly didn’t want to disappoint him--

But suddenly Holst’s expression softened, his brows drawing together. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said, taking his hand back. “Am I bothering--”

“No!” Chris practically shouted, and then slapped a hand over his mouth. Holst raised his brows. Chris closed his eyes to keep from the shame. “No, I’m sorry, you’re… you’re not bothering me at all, I just… h-handshakes, I…”

Chris opened his eyes to find Holst… smiling. There was a gentleness to his expression that reminded Chris suddenly of his little brother Ashe when he came rushing in to patch up a skinned knee with a bandaid or with a bowl of soup to soothe someone’s cold. So kind…

“I get it,” Holst said, shrugging. “Everyone’s got something. No hands is what you’ve got.”

Chris had never… well… He didn’t know what to do with himself suddenly. Holst seemed content to sit there and looking over at Miklan and Glenn proved Sylvain was trying the puppy dog eyes on his big brother and getting absolutely nowhere with it. He couldn’t very well run away, but…

Well no one had ever really cared about Chris’s thing about hands, no one but his manager/cousin Catherine. And they’d been friends since they were children. He just didn’t know how to respond to that. Was Holst even being sincere? He couldn’t tell when Holst squinted at him that way.

“You wanna know what my thing is?” Holst asked.

Chris bit his lip, unsure whether he should meet Holst’s eyes or avoid them at any cost. Was he looking too much? Too hard? At the wrong place? “W-what is it?” he asked, staring decidedly at the counter.

“I hate making mistakes,” Holst said, as if there were nothing to it, nothing difficult about disclosing his weaknesses to a relative stranger.

And somehow, of the many charming things Chris had overheard Holst say, that line was the one that soothed the tension between his shoulder blades. Like a flower unfurling--or perhaps more accurately, a turtle sticking its head out from within its shell--Chris looked up and met Holst’s gaze, pink and lovely as it was.

“Most people hate that,” Chris whispered.

Somehow Holst heard him over the lazers of the arcade and the plaintive pop song singing above their heads. Somehow when Holst’s eyes met Chris’s, there was something different about it. Gone was that rakish air, that cool unaffected smile, and Chris was sure he was seeing through him. Like he had x-ray vision, like the lane lights had all lowered onto Holst in front of him. “Yeah,” Holst whispered back. “But… I _really_ hate it.”

Then he sighed, and the moment of clarity was gone. He smiled a self-deprecating smile, leaning his elbows onto the counter. His food still laid relatively untouched, but it was as if he’d forgotten about it entirely. “I think I really did it with this girl I was supposed to meet up with tonight.”

Chris’s stomach twisted, and he looked away. Ah yes. So there was a woman of the hour. Had he expected anything else?

“Why do you think that?” he asked, hoping his disappointment wasn’t too audible.

He turned to the slushie machines, grabbing his rag from earlier and intending to clean them. But as Holst sighed again, he found he was only really going through the motions. “I was supposed to pick her up, but I had to help Hilda out… Guess she didn’t like the idea of getting another ride…”

Holst sounded truly heartbroken as he said it, and Chris couldn’t understand why. He glanced at Holst out of the corner of his eye, watched him stir his melting slushie with the straw. Maybe Chris hadn’t gone on a date before, but he wouldn’t want to date someone that didn’t respect his dedication to his siblings. Even if he’d really liked this girl… hadn’t he dodged a bullet?

“Well, I don’t think she deserves to be here if she can’t accept…” He stopped, swallowing hard. Maybe he was overstepping… “I mean… your sister… means…”

“The world to me,” Holst finished, and Chris looked up at him again.

A group of kids ran past the snack bar, squealing about something or other, and usually Chris would remind them not to run, but he was just… too mesmerized. As Holst squinted at him, studied him.

“You ever been on a date?” Holst suddenly asked.

Chris blinked at him for a long moment, processing the words, and when they finally made sense to him, he felt his whole face go red with shame. “Um… n-not… not exactly?” he admitted. He could have explained why, explained how in school no one but Catherine had ever looked at him twice, how after his father passed away and left him in charge of the kids, he’d never really had time to think about that--

But Holst didn’t ask for an explanation, and he didn’t seem to need one. There was no pity in his gaze, only a glint of mischief that made Chris’s stomach do flips. “Oh babe,” Holst laughed, “We have got to fix that.”

 _Babe_. No one had ever called him babe before. Was Holst just teasing him? Did it matter, when the effect was to make Chris feel lightheaded with the desire to hear it again?

“A-ah,” he breathed, shaking his head slowly and then faster. “W-what do you--what do--I don’t--”

Holst laughed, his voice so sweet and loud. “Hey, don’t freak out!” He leaned back from the counter, crossing his arms. “I’ve got an idea. My date isn’t showing tonight so I’m free to show you around town.”

Show him around town? “I’ve… lived here my whole life,” Chris whispered, recalling that he’d never met Holst until a few months ago when he started taking dates to Thunderstrike. What could Holst possibly have to show him?

Holst smiled though, a knowing smile as if he’d expected Chris to say that. “Yeah? Well you’ve never seen it with me. I’ve been told I make it quite the experience.”

Wait. Wait was… was Holst… really asking him… on a date?

If Chris hadn’t been shaking before, he most definitely was now. He felt the conflict in his chest as if something was tugging his arms apart. Holst Goneril was asking him on a date. Handsome, funny, bright-eyed Holst Goneril.

But he had no time for dating! He went from class to work to home to sleep and repeat day in and day out. Where in his busy schedule could he fit in a date when he was…

Oh but he longed for it so desperately suddenly. Holst’s smile was inviting, and his eyes drew him like a moth to flame. He wanted to go on a date with him and ask him so many questions and experience life for just a brief moment, free of responsibilities and--

“I-I’m… I don’t… My shift doesn’t end till midnight, and I have to go home--”

“Why not get someone to cover your shift?” Holst asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chris felt the color drain from his face. Oh, absolutely not. He couldn’t skip out on the rest of his shift. He shook his head again, wringing the rag in his hands so tight that it might have torn if he were stronger. “What? No, I-I can’t--”

“Can’t what?”

A big hand clapped down on Chris’s shoulder and made him yelp and scramble away. Miklan wasn’t looking at him though, only looking at Holst who met his glare with a challenging smirk. “Hey, Mikky.”

Oh, Miklan _hated_ being called Mikky.

He put his hands on the counter in front of Holst and said, his voice gruff, “You know I could kick you out for harassing the employees, bud.”

Holst chuckled as Chris touched Miklan’s arm. “I-it’s--”

“Are you like a bouncer now or something?” Holst asked, incredulous.

“I just kicked out my own brother. You really think I won’t do the same to you?” Miklan challenged.

Holst just shrugged, but he did stand up. “It’s okay, I was leaving anyway.” He slapped a stack of cash on the counter suddenly, a glossy card on top, and then he looked at Chris over Miklan’s broad shoulder, a sweet smile on his face. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

With that, he left, leaving his food still on the counter, and Chris watched him leave, feeling like the heroine of a teen romcom. He… he could… run after him and…

Chris quickly shook his head of the thought, pressing his hands to his temples. No, no… he couldn’t do that. There was no one to take his shift anyway, and he couldn’t do something so reckless as that! Catherine was his dearest friend, but she was also his manager, and if she found out he skipped a shift without telling anyone? What would she say!

“Hey, you okay?” Miklan asked, his hand touching Chris’s back, this time far gentler than before.

Chris still shivered, but he nodded, smiling up at Miklan. “It’s… it’s okay, I’m all right.”

Miklan didn’t look so sure, crossing his arms over his chest. “What did he say to you?” he asked, brown eyes lowered in a glare.

Chris squeezed the rag in his hands again. “No, nothing, he just…” He swallowed hard and walked past him to clean up Holst’s meal. “He um… I think he…”

Chris picked up the cash Holst had left on the counter, realizing the card was… a business card? The top said Goneril Construction, but the back said, _Call me_ , alongside a winky face and what Chris could only assume was Holst’s number. When had he had time to write that? Or did he just carry his number around in bulk, just in case?

“Asked me on a date,” he finished.

“What!”

Chris looked up and across the way to Glenn leaning over the shoe rental counter with wide eyes. Chris hadn’t realized he was listening in. “Oh no,” he murmured under his breath.

Glenn, a vision in his far-too-big red and white uniform, easily slid over the shoe rental counter, and crossed the scant distance to the snack bar. He smelled distinctly of old leather and whatever olive branch of a martini Miklan had slid him earlier, but Chris was used to that. What he wasn’t used to was the glitter in his eyes as he leaned across the counter towards him. “Did you just fucking turn down a date?”

Chris blinked at him rapidly, and then looked back and forth as if there was any possibility he could be talking to someone else. Miklan, leaning against the sink, shrugged. Chris looked sheepishly back at Glenn. He was shorter than Chris, but only by a bit, and it didn’t make him any less intimidating. Glenn was pretty in a way Chris could only dream of being, with his long, silky black hair and piercing blue eyes like daggers.

“Y-yes?” Chris managed to admit, clasping his hands together behind his back.

Glenn rolled his eyes at him. “Are you an idiot, Gaspard?” he snorted. “You’ve been eyeing him up since the first day he came in, and you’re going to turn down a date with him now?”

Chris knew already he was blushing, but this was just far too much. He covered his face with his hands. “What, I--I haven’t been--it doesn’t--”

“I pegged you for a coward,” Miklan sighed, nursing a beer he’d almost certainly stolen from the fridge in the back.

Chris grimaced at him, opening his mouth to remind him that he’d threatened to kick Holst out, but Glenn’s hand waved in his face, making him flinch. “Hello! You’re not a coward, don’t be a pussy and go after him,” he snapped.

Chris immediately shook his head, frantically waving his hands. “No, no, I’m not--I can’t go after him, I--”

“I’ll take your shift,” Glenn said.

Chris gasped. “But what about--”

Glenn snorted, leaning over the counter so they were face to face. His voice turned dangerously low. “The only reason Catherine keeps Mik around is because he makes a mean margarita. You really think she’s going to fire her childhood bestie for getting some pipe?”

Chris went hot from head to toe, a squeak leaving his lips as he looked back at Miklan, who was clearly only pretending to not have heard a thing. He looked back and forth between them, horrified. “No way,” he whined. He shook his head again, looking at Glenn’s knowing smirk, and back to Miklan’s raised brows. “No way, I’m not--that is--I can’t afford to skip a shift--”

“I can copy your signature for the sign out sheet,” Miklan interrupted, knocking back the last of his beer. He already looked buzzed, a glisten to his eyes, a pink blush on his nose. “It’ll be like you never left.”

“And who’s gonna give me trouble?” Glenn insisted when Chris looked helplessly at him. Glenn raised one slender eyebrow. “The little old couple from _Up_ or a bunch of brats?” He leaned in even closer and squinted at him. “Felix is my little brother. I’ll be fine.”

Chris still wasn’t sure. He’d never done something like this before. Going on a date was just too--just too--! He’d resigned himself to experiencing that late in life, perhaps after his little siblings moved out and moved on. He was a sole provider now! No time for such frivolities! And as unglamorous as his job was, he needed it. He couldn’t afford to do something so horribly reckless.

But…

Glenn clearly saw when Chris gave up, his shoulders slumping, his breath coming out in a shaky sigh. And the moment he did, Miklan’s strong arms wrapped around his middle and easily yanked him off his feet. Chris threw his hands over his mouth to hide a shriek as he was lifted over the counter and back to the floor on the other side. Miklan leaned over the counter to wink at him as Glenn crawled over himself.

“But who’s going to--”

Glenn yanked the paper uniform hat off his head and set it down on top of his own. “None of your business! You are officially off the clock.”

Despite himself, and all the hesitation in his chest, he couldn’t help the giddy bubbling of his nerves. He was… This was really happening. He was. Going on a date. A _date_.

Gosh, he couldn’t have worn a more flattering uniform?

“Now go get your man!”

Chris didn’t know who said it--maybe both?--because he’d already nodded, determined, and took off running after Holst.

Outside, the night was cold, digging under Chris’s thin uniform shirt, but he wasn’t out there long before a familiar voice caught his attention.

“Okay, that’s gotta be a record,” Holst said from behind him.

Chris whipped around to find Holst leaning casually against the wall beside the front doors of the alley. As he walked towards Chris, the neon orange and yellow Thunderstrike sign lit him up, strangely mesmerizing, turning him gold. Chris stood stock still, seeing his breath in the cool air. When Holst stood in front of him, their breath made a cloud around them. Chris leaned his head back to meet his eyes. “Um… is it… too late to… accept that date?”

Holst smiled. “I’d have waited forever.”

Chris knew that was nothing but a line, deep down, but it still made his breath stutter, still made his heart dance. He ducked his head with a shy smile. “Well, I… I’m here now.”

“Here you are,” Holst whispered back.

When Chris looked up at him from underneath his lashes, he realized Holst wasn’t looking at him so much as studying his entire form. Chris really wished he’d brought a change of clothes, but Holst didn’t seem too worried about it. In fact, he just seemed distracted by Chris’s shivering.

Wordlessly, he stripped off his leather jacket, leaving him in nothing but a tight t-shirt that showed off--oh--very muscular arms. “Here,” he said, with a wink. Chris knew there was no way he’d missed the way Chris’s eyes bugged out at the sight of those biceps. Chris hadn't been very religious in a long time, but surely someone needed to be thanked for their existence. “You need it more than I do.”

He draped the jacket over Chris’s shoulders. A little too big, but just enough for Chris to grasp the edges and pull it around him. It was so warm… and it smelled distinctly of cherry blossoms and cinnamon. “I… thank you,” he whispered, looking away again out of sheer embarrassment.

Holst just smiled, carefully putting one of those muscular arms around Chris’s shoulders. When Chris didn’t protest, he held him firm against his side and said, “Come on.”

He led the way through the parking lot, Chris’s heart pounding as he tried to settle his nerves. But as they made their way past minivans and Glenn’s shitty pickup, Chris let out a gasp. Holst stopped in front of a dark and gleaming motorcycle that surely cost more than the entire bowling alley. “Wait,” Chris breathed, looking at Holst in shock as he walked up to it. “That’s yours?”

Holst flashed Chris a wink over his shoulder before he popped open a locked box on the back of the bike and pulled out a helmet from within. It was just as sleek and black as his ride, hiding his face from view when he swung it on. Somehow, the sight made Chris’s heart hammer against his ribs. He pulled a second helmet from the box and gestured for Chris to come closer.

Swallowing hard, Chris drifted towards him and allowed Holst to set the helmet over his head and strap it on. Gosh, it was heavy and so dark that Chris gasped in the cramped space--until Holst hit a button of some kind that made the visor pop open. Holst had lifted his as well, and though Chris could only see his eyes, somehow his smile was evident.

“You look good like this,” Holst praised, his voice muffled, and Chris was glad he couldn’t see his blush. “Ready to go?”

Chris bit his lip hard, sinking his teeth in enough to dent the delicate skin. This was already the most reckless thing he’d ever done. What would Catherine say? Was his father rolling in his grave yet? Would Ashe and the little ones shake their heads in disappointment? Running off with some strange man he hardly knew, skipping work, all for the thrill that Holst sent through his chest?

Christophe Gaspard had not been a reckless boy, and he was not a reckless man. But…

“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is, as always, very self-indulgent and maybe not my best work... but I really love my boys ; u ; and this was fun to write! I love flirty Holst and flustered Chris so much. I'm thinking of doing a second chapter with their date, but I can't make any promises. I hope you guys like this little taste though <3
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, please leave a kudos and/or comment, they make my world go round! And if you have any questions or want to talk to me about Chrolst, you can find me on twitter @novelistangel23 . Thank you again!
> 
> (Oh also, title comes from Nobody by Mitski, which I listened to nearly exclusively writing this XD Check it out!)


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